OREANDA-NEWS. On 21 April 2009 was announced, that with the aim of increasing the environmental safety at the Mineral Chemical Company, EuroChem in Belorechensk of the Krasnodar region, EuroChem is continuing the planned work on the reconstruction industrial facilities of the factory. Apart form reclaiming the sludge reservoir feeding the calcined phosphate, the successful implementation of the project for the switch to a zero discharge water utilization system. The total cost of this investment in the reconstruction of the different production departments and the implementation of a a zero discharge water utilization system in 2009 will cost 363 million RUB.

The project of building a zero discharge water utilization scheme is aimed at stopping the discharging of sewage in to the rivers and this will be done in three stages.

The first stage of this project was successfully completed in 2007. The local purification and treatment facilities was constructed and put in to use and sewage effluents which were not discharged to the river were returned for processing.

The second stage of the switch over to a zero discharge water utilization scheme was the inspection of all the company’s department by employees from Moscow’s institute for scientific research Vodgeo, which created a balanced outlay of water consumption and water discharge. Further, according to the results of Vodgeo and EuroChem’s collaboration, a plan was developed aimed at reducing the amount of industrial and storm water waste. Industrial and storm water waste are wastes that are formed as a result of precipitation and drainage of industrial water for example after a boiler blow down of a chemical treatment plant. Taking in to consideration that in one day the company uses between 1700m?–2000m? of water, reducing the volume of liquid waste is not an easy task. The minimizing waste is a necessary condition for the switch to a zero discharge water utilization scheme. At this stage, a fundamental scheme for the construction of a zero discharge water utilization system was chosen and the main engineering proposal was worked out.

The third stage is planned to start this year, when Vodgeo presents a finished plan of the project for the creation of a zero discharge water utilization system with detailed description of the place and size of the storage tank, type of pumping machinery, and the pipeline architecture. By 2010, EuroChem will full switch to a zero discharge water utilization system and will exclude the pollution of rivers of the town with industrial waste.